Still weird

I spoke to my mom on the phone last night and she didn't sleep much or well for 3 nights this week either - the night of the full moon, and those before and after. She's mentioned this on and off through the years, but last night, for the first time, she blamed me. Apparently I really am 1/3 werewolf. She first started having trouble sleeping through full moons when she was pregnant with me, and has had intermittent trouble with it since. I've always had trouble with sleep generally (in retrospect, it's easier to notice), so it's only been in the last few years of having good, quality sleep that I notice how some things cause sleep disturbances: caffeine, jetlag, and other things that never made my sleep worse than it usually was. Apparently one of those other things is a need to howl at the moon.

On another topic, but still weird, I went out to eat last night after a run to Mecca (as my friend Quiche calls Target) to get some toilet paper and other necessary items like a great little end table and glitter glue in the $1 spot ... I can't get out of that $1 spot without dropping $20. And now they've added $2.50 items as well. I don't feel too bad about it because when I get home with that stuff, I always have a place for it to go - it's often stuff that I'd looked for before but didn't want to spend money or something that would supplement stuff I have. At any rate, I had a giant 16 pack of TP in the back seat, wedged in to keep the fully assembled table from sliding and getting damaged, when I stopped for dinner.

I sat at the bar, because that's what one does when dining alone. After weeks of no action of any sort, I got hit on by 3 guys last night. All I could think of was the fact that I had to go home and get the toilet paper inside before my last half roll ran out and isn't that sexy thought? But it was still no good because it was not what I would call good, healthy action. One creepy grizzled old dude, who fortunately didn't sit in the chair right next to me, mentioned several times that he'd be interested, despite my keeping my back to him pretty much from the start. Another guy actually followed me into the bathroom (WTF?!?!) and thought it might be hot to get it on over a toilet. Thankfully, one of his buddies came in an hauled him out of there.

I've puzzled it out since, and I think he just moved on the only woman left in the bar when it was closing down since I hadn't noticed him looking at me even once in the 2 hours prior to this. And it's not like I was closing down the bar on purpose - it just wasn't that late! I got there a little after 9, had my dinner, started chatting with a few of the soccer players, thanks to the sweet young thing who sat next to me while waiting for a sober ride home who caught their attention, and next thing I know, the bartender is cashing out at 11pm. On a saturday night. I truly do live in the suburb of early nights. Maybe I should look for dates in the valley, where things stay open later. And some randy soccer player has no reason to think I'm the only game in town. I got the number of the 3rd guy, but he's in northern CA and just here for the soccer coaching clinic at CLU, which ends thursday. I'm thinking I should label his number in my cell as "do not answer" now that I've had time to think about it.

Well, I'm off for a carwash and to see if I can find more of Julie Ortolon's books. I got a couple in a book exchange and finally read them and find them really enjoyable. The characters have issues to work on, and they work on them. I believe in their conflict resolution skills. The plots aren't genius, but the handling of character development is. And they're a tad steamy. It's good fantasy escapism but where you like the people because they seem real, or at least possible. One thing I find kind of funny is that I keep mentally saying her name as /OR-lah-ton/ which is all mixed up -- and she's so dyslexic that she only learned to read in her early 20s. She does have a small issue with homophones (Marino/Murano), but I can let it slide if there's a good reason like dyslexia. Although I still have an issue with editors, generally, and hers specifically, for letting stuff like this (averse/adverse) through. Author Jenny Crusie blogged last year about how words are an author's medium, so they should know them, use them correctly, and not expect editors to fix their mistakes. I absolutely agree. But I can see how someone who only knows words by sound, and not spelling, would need to have backup.

I haven't been up long enough for 3 really deep happy things, but I have 3 nonetheless:

1. The car wash plan. I pay a low monthly fee and can go to the car wash whenever I want to. In addition to the usual, they clean the windows inside and out, vacuum, throw out my trash, and it's fast. Three visits/month is enough to be saving money and I need at least that many. I might have washed my Golf twice a year in Boston. But in CA, there's so much dust from lack of rain, and any spots from birds or trees will get fried into the paint from the sun, that even I, the queen of not washing my car, look at my car after a week and think, "carwash, stat". I even washed the rental.
2. Irish Breakfast Tea. I love assam tea. Nothing says good morning like a hot cup.
3. In unit laundry. Never had it before in my adult life. Now, I don't have to schedule my life around laundry and acquisition of quarters. I put a load in last night, dried it this morning while I showered and breakfasted, and look! Clean laundry with no fuss! No lugging 40 pounds down 3 flights of stairs! No fevered rush to make sure I'm at the machine the second the "in use" light goes off. It's so civilized! Now if only the dryer vent had the draw of my fireplace vent, all would be well. It's clean enough not to catch fire, but before I hook up a new unit, I'll get someone professional out to rout it more throughly.

I think that's enough for one day. I actually need to go do something with it.